11.1 Tackling the legacy of COVID-19

11.1 Tackling the legacy of COVID-19

Recognising loss of learning

COVID-19 has undeniably impacted the education system in significant ways and this impact will have medium and long-term consequences for the development of the education system. As we discussed in Chapter 10, the closure of schools and settings, and the disruption to learning that children and young people experienced, have had, for many of them, a considerable and immediately negative impact on their learning and progress in several areas of the curriculum. At the time of writing, it is not possible to quantify precisely that learning loss for Irish young people, but the data that has been collected during the national assessments of Mathematics and English reading (NAMER) undertaken in 2021, and through forthcoming international surveys such as PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS, are likely to show some erosion in the overall performance of pupils/students in English literacy, Mathematics and Science.161

The effect is not confined to these curriculum areas. Engagement by inspectors with schools and ELC settings has identified concerns across a range of issues caused not only by closures of schools and settings but also by broken attendance at ELC settings and schools, the absences from work of early years educators and teachers due to COVID illnesses, and restrictions and interruption in access to therapeutic health services and interventions for young people. The cumulative effect of these conditions has affected many aspects of children’s and young people’s development. There is evidence, for example, that children’s early linguistic development, pupils’/students’ social and emotional skills and pupils’/students’ wellbeing have been adversely affected, as well as the normal progression and maturing that we expect to see in pupils’/students’ ability and motivation to engage in learning162.

161 Data on student performance in reading and maths at primary level was collected for the National Assessment of Maths and English in autumn 2021 initial results are expected to be available from the Educational Research Centre in late 2022. The planned 2021 round of PISA was postponed by the OECD until 2022; Irish students are scheduled undergo the PISA tests in Reading Literacy, Mathematical Literacy and Scientific Literacy in autumn 2022 and initial results are expected from the OECD by the end of 2023. 162 Rao, N. and Fisher, P. A. (2021) ‘The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child and adolescent development around the world’, Child Development 42(5). Available at: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14678624/2021/92/5

Tackling the uneven impact of COVID-19

Given what our evaluations and the research of others have shown to date, it appears that the effect of COVID-19 has been experienced unevenly. Pupils/students at most risk of educational disadvantage have been disproportionately affected. It is possible, for example, that in the next few years we may see a slowing or even a reversal of the progress that we have made in Ireland in improving the learning outcomes of pupils/students in DEIS schools163 vis-à-vis pupils/students in other schools. It is possible, too, we will see a similar effect for pupils/students with special educational needs and those who require therapeutic supports. These sorts of effects are likely to persist for at least a proportion of pupils/students for some time. There is also another group of pupils/students who previously may not have been considered as having additional educational needs but who now do because of the impact of COVID-19: the isolation from these pupils’/students’ peers and friends during school closure periods, and the dilution of their motivation to learn without the face-to-face encouragement and support of their educators have left some pupils/students struggling to re-establish the routines and norms that were disrupted.

This legacy of COVID-19 is not unique to Ireland. Education systems across the world have had similar experiences and it has led many of them, and organisations such as the OECD, to consider how education provision should be adjusted to ensure that greater supports are provided to more vulnerable learners. In Ireland, the intensive programmes provided for extended cohorts of pupils/students in summer 2020 and summer 2021 were a good first step in addressing these needs and it is welcome that planning is underway for similar programmes in 2022. The Department also introduced a Supplementary Programme and a CLASS programme, both of which provide additional resources to schools to address the effects of COVID-19. The increased levels of teacher allocations and funding to schools that had been introduced during the early stages of the pandemic were sustained in the 2021/22 school year to help to maintain enhanced pupilteacher ratios. Funding for early learning and care provision was also enhanced during the pandemic by the employment wage subsidy scheme and a range of special grants to service providers.

At the time of writing, no decision has been made concerning future levels of teacher allocations and enhanced funding to schools beyond the 2021/22 school year, and the picture is complicated by a number of factors including rising numbers of students at post-primary level, falling enrolments at primary level, extensions of the DEIS scheme to further schools, and continuing teacher shortages at post-primary level. The long-term effects of COVID-19 on pupils’/students’ learning, and particularly the learning of disadvantaged and vulnerable learners, will remain as a further factor to be considered in the staffing and funding of schools.

The evidence concerning how best to organise interventions to tackle the learning needs of pupils/students arising from COVID-19 is patchy to date. Some jurisdictions have allocated additional teachers and funding to schools. Other jurisdictions have chosen to devolve additional funding to schools and settings, and have allowed them to tailor interventions to address the specific needs of their pupils/students. In Ireland, as in several countries, we have adopted both approaches.

Irrespective of the manner in which the provision of interventions is organised, we know that interventions work best when they are tailored to the needs of individual learners. This means it will be important that the teachers, early years educators and other professionals involved in supplementary programmes and initiatives have access to detailed information about the needs and progress of the pupils/students participating in the intervention. Teachers and educators must design and track specific teaching and learning interventions to address these needs based upon a range of authentic data that demonstrates clearly the unique situation, profile and progress of each learner. Feedback of information from, and during, the intervention period will be very important to pupils’/students’ class teachers and early years educators.

Given the findings of this Chief Inspector’s Report that teachers’ assessment of pupils’/students’ progress and their needs remains an area of challenge across the Irish system, it will be necessary to ensure that professional development for those providing intensive programmes is built into the planning for such programmes. Specifically, better guidance for practitioners on reporting back to classroom teachers and early years educators will be critical.

163 Schools participating in the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools initiative

Maximising the benefits of advances in the use of information and communications technology

COVID-19 was not an entirely negative experience for the education system, of course. The most obvious benefit to arise from the crisis was the advances made in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the education sphere. Prior to the pandemic, the use of ICT in the Irish school system was relatively limited, being confined largely to its use as a presentation tool in classrooms for several curriculum areas. Its use in early learning and care settings was even more confined. As Chapter 10 has demonstrated, the need to move rapidly to the widespread use of remote teaching and learning during the closures of schools in 2020 and 2021 forced a fundamental shift in the capacity of teachers and students to use the technology, and a very large investment by Government in the availability of the technology to students.

More significantly, however, this COVID-induced change demonstrated the possibilities and potential of blended learning and more personalised learning experiences for young people. Advocates of greater use of ICT in education had been arguing for many years that ICT and online learning could open up greater possibilities for young people to engage with a wider range of teachers and other learning sources, and they have pointed out that ICT offered the possibility of personalised learning experiences for students. Progress in realising that vision had been slow, but was accelerated hugely by the need to make learning and teaching available to students during lockdown periods.

Even with the advances that rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence can offer, ICT cannot replace an effective teacher. However, ICT can make some forms of learning opportunities available at least as effectively as teachers; it can foster independent learning; it has the capacity to adjust the pace and content of lessons to suit the ability and progress of the individual learner; and it can provide tailored assessment and feedback to students and their teachers. Further advances in Artificial Intelligence in the years ahead will undoubtedly enhance the quality of the online learning experience.

Through ICT, we can also offer access to a greater breadth of curriculum and a wider range of teachers. This has obvious advantages for many students, most obviously for those who wish to study minority subjects and those who may live in isolated areas or attend smaller schools where the curriculum choice may be curtailed. The success of the Irish-medium e-Hub in the Gaeltacht schools and the work of iScoil in providing learning for students receiving home tuition are just two small examples of what is possible in this regard, when high-quality teaching and learning resources are developed and provided in an ICT and online environment.

Many education systems are seeking to capitalise on the advantages that the sudden shift in ICT capacity and the growth of Artificial Intelligence are bringing about, and this will be an important area of challenge in the Irish system in the years ahead. This will have implications in a range of areas, including initial and continuing teacher education, teacher recognition, curriculum design (discussed below), and the whole area of assessment, accreditation and micro-qualifications for young people during their schooling and for life-long learning. Most significant of all is the fact that the opportunities that are opened up by ICT require a level of digital literacy for all and equity of access to high quality ICT devices and facilities. In a way, the COVID-19 experience has confirmed that access to, and fluency in, using and understanding ICT in a critical, informed way is as important and basic a right as access to reading and writing became at the beginning of the 19th century.

Using education to advance social equity

The lack of early learning and care provision and in-person schooling during the periods of lockdown demonstrated very visibly how much children and young people can benefit from good publicly provided education. Parents, who found themselves in the role of home educators, became more conscious than ever of the challenges involved in providing systematic and developmentally appropriate learning experiences. We saw too, the importance of the social and emotional support that teachers and other professionals can provide for young people, and the contribution they make to ensuring that young people who may be at risk of harm or of becoming disengaged from education can be identified as early as possible.

The lack of in-person schooling and early years provision during two lockdown periods also demonstrated the important role that public education plays in advancing equity in Irish society. Early years education and schooling cannot address all inequities in a society but the availability of high-quality educational experiences can make an important difference. They provide structure for children and young people; they

help to sustain motivation; they encourage social interconnectedness and friendships. They help to provide children and young people, who are less advantaged economically and socially, with opportunities to develop their skills and abilities in ways that enable them to access further learning, secure their economic well-being, and live fuller lives as healthy and active citizens.

In Ireland, the learning outcomes of young people are less strongly dictated by their social and economic background than in many other countries164. Several long-term policies have helped this situation to come about, for example, the sustained investments made in the quality of the teaching force, the success of the DEIS programme, the investments made in special education, the near universal uptake of the primary school system, and the adoption of a largely comprehensive style of schooling at post-primary level. All these have also contributed to more equitable outcomes for Irish young people. The disruption of access to in-person public educational provision – even for the short periods of lockdown – demonstrated this powerfully, but also showed that much remains to be done if we are to advance social as well as educational equity.